Why did Pop art supporters consider the movement democratic?

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Five Andy Warhol paintings of Campbell's soup cans, each labeled with a different soup variety, displayed in a row on a white wall at Museumsquartier in Vienna. — Pop art *Campbell's Soup Cans*, polymer paint on canvas by Andy Warhol, 1962; a selection of five on display in the Museumsquartier, Vienna.

Proponents of Pop art viewed the movement as democratic and nondiscriminatory because it bridged the gap between different audiences, effectively bringing together both art connoisseurs and untrained viewers.1

By utilizing subject matter drawn from popular and commercial culture—such as comic strips, soup cans, and advertising—the movement rejected the exclusivity of traditional "high art" and the elitist pretensions often associated with the avant-garde. Because these works featured easily comprehensible, familiar imagery, they were accessible to a broad public, contrasting sharply with the highly personal and often abstract nature of Abstract Expressionism that had previously dominated the art world.1